David Haye has been recruited to assist Roy Jones Jr prepare Chris Eubank Jr for his rematch with Liam Smith.
The former WBA heavyweight champion and unified cruiserweight champion had already been friends with Eubank Jr, and ahead of the middleweight’s attempts to rebuild his career after his stoppage defeat by Smith he has again made changes to his training setup.
Eubank Jr worked again with Jones Jr for the fight in January having previously prepared without him for the cancelled fight with Conor Benn. Before then he had also worked with Nate Vasquez, Ronnie Davies and Adam Booth – the trainer who oversaw Haye’s finest years.
In the fights after his separation from Booth, Haye also trained with the respected Shane McGuigan and Ismael Salas, and having once inspired increased professionalism with Derek Chisora during his time as his manager, he has already made an impression on Jones Jr – who during his time as heavyweight champion it was said he could have fought.
“It’s a bit of motivation for Chris,” Jones Jr told ProBox TV. “David Haye is a former world champion, so he’s a person who’s experienced it all and understands and knows the tools, and two heads are better than one.
“When you got somebody that already understands and knows, it’s good to have him around – especially if they’re good friends, because what David does is David sometimes reminds you of the things that you’re not doing that you should be doing. He’s more close to your age [at 42], so y’all can communicate a little bit better and a little bit different than I can. I’m from a whole different era. You understand where I’m coming from?
“[Eubank Jr’s] looking pretty good. It’s early in his training camp so he got a little way to go still, but we’ll see.”
There was little about January’s fight between Eubank Jr and Smith that suggested that Eubank Jr can win on their rearranged date of July 1 at the Manchester Arena. Jones Jr, however – with Eubank Jr and Haye in Las Vegas – revealed that his fighter ignored his instructions for the first fight and believes that if the 33 year old follows them this time he will win.
“To be frank and honest, what I implemented for the first fight, he didn’t do,” the 54 year old continued. “He’ll tell you himself he didn’t do what I had planned for him to do the first fight. People want to say, ‘Well, Roy got him boxing’. Roy didn’t tell him to go and box. Roy told him to go out there for maybe one or two rounds, then he’s gotta press forwards. That’s what Roy told him to do. Roy didn’t tell him to go out there and box Liam Smith, ‘cause that’s not the way you beat Liam Smith.
“Roy told him when he first got to Brighton last time, ‘Look, you don’t need me for this fight – this is the kind of fight that you used to fight – you don’t need me for this’. That’s what Roy told him when he got there.
“People don’t want to tell the truth and understand what the truth is, but my first words to him were, ‘You don’t need me for this fight – my style, what I do, what I’m showing you to be better at, has nothing to do with this fight, because that’s not the way you want to fight this guy. This guy’s a different kind of fighter – this guy, the old Eubank works better than the one you’re trying to be. I’m trying to take all the facets of your game to another level – I’m not trying to change you’.
“That’s what I told him the first day I got there. So when people say, ‘Roy made him light; Roy made him softer’. No. Roy told him the first day, ‘I’m here ‘cause I wanna help you get better, but you don’t really need me ‘cause you need to be the old Chris Eubank to beat this guy’.
“If he fights his fight [he wins the rematch]. If he do what I tell him to do, he’d have won the first time.
“Now we gotta change again, because they know that my plan was for Chris to go that way last time, so they gonna prepare for it this time, just in case he does listen, so I can’t go with the same game plan. I gotta change, because that’s what great minds do. I have to change now because they know that game.”
